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Canon Adds Four More PowerShots to Line-up

Not quite content with it’s other entries this season, Canon has further expanded the old annual offering of digital compacts by another four models. Now in ye olde line-up are the PowerShot ELPH 320 HS, ELPH 530 HS, SX260 HS, and their second offering in the all-weather market, the PowerShot D20.

From most to least interesting:

The PowerShot D20 is Canon’s second effort at a waterproof camera, and for their second go they’ve wisely gone the styling route Casio also took, and away from the oddly bulbous D10. It’s waterproof to 33 feet, shockproof to 5 feet, and freeze-proof to 14 degrees F. Beyond that, you’re looking at a 12.1 megapixel HS CMOS sensor with a DIGIC IV processor, a 5x optical zoom, GPS, and a 3″ touchscreen display. It’ll come out at right around $349.99

The SX260 HS has a 20x zoom that starts at 25mm equiv, strapped to a body a mere 1.29″ thick. The same sensor from the D20 is on-board here, so, no surprises to be had, but the processor gets a boost to a DIGIC V. Other features are 1080p video, GPS, and a continuous shooting mode of 10.3fps… for 10 frames. So, it’ll be a good second, baby. You’ll be able to have it black, green, or red for $349.99.

Down the line, we have the ELPH 530 HS, a .78″ thick box with a lens and shutter button strapped to it. With this magical box, you get a 12x zoom lens, 10 megapixel HS CMOS sensor, DIGIC V, and a 3.2″ touchscreen LCD. Oh, and did we mention it’s wi-fi enabled, letting you share pictures right from it to Flickr, Facebook, your phone, etc? Oh, well. it is. It’ll be in black or white for $349.99 (noticing a pattern here…)

Last, the PowerShot ELPH 320 HS is the “not the best, but not the worst” middle ground that’s actually the hardest to blog about. it’s well-enough specced to be attractive, with a 16.1 megapixel sensor, DIGIC V, 3.2″ touchscreen LCD, and the wi-fi inside, but otherwise doesn’t have any features that stand out. Still, for the retail price of $279.99, in black, silver, blur, or red and with those features, maybe it doesn’t need to stand out any more.

Press release and images after the jump.

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Nikon Updates Coolpix Line-up

Nikon decided to grace us with some announcements last night, although those of you waiting for word on if something will replace the D700 are going to just have to wait a bit longer. Instead, we got the annual fresher for the Coolpix line-up, with 2 L-series entries, 5 S-series ones, and two P-series revamps. But because that’s too easy, one of the S series is being lumped in with the L series at the bottom. Confused yet? Good. We don’t like being the only ones.

From the bottom up, we find ourselves starting with the L “Lifestyle” series of entry-level compacts. And one S. But we’ll let that slide for now. These are the cheaper, budget-conscious models,and they are also the ones that still use AAs for power, if you’re into that sort of thing. As usual, the marketing speak in these releases is just amazing, so, far be it for us to deprive you of the joy, we’ll introduce each model with Nikon’s promo line. Starting with:

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Panasonic Expands Lumix Line 5 Models, One All-New

More CES love? Aw, shucks, well, sure. This time, it’s Panasonic on the block, with a total of five entries to its Lumix line of compacts. Two are updaes to the SZ series, 2 are updates to the FH series, and one is the new DMC-S2. What’s all that mean, exactly? Well, why not hop on over to Engadget, who not only nabbed the press releases, but some pretty pictures too?



Sony’s Cybershot W610, W620, W650 Update Line-Up, Skip Numbers.

Not wanting to miss out on the CES lovage, Sony has thrown 3 new models into its Cybershot line-up.

The W610 starts us off with some pretty typical entry specs: 14megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom (28-114mm equiv), 2.7″ LCD, face detection, smile detection, blink detection, sweep panorama, dynamic range optimizer, and a rather curious “Natural Flash.” And five colors: green, black, blue, red, silver. No HD video, though. VGA only. Price will be $109.99 for this one.

The W620 is up next, and features the return of pretty much all of the above, except the lens moves up to a 5x zoom (28-140mm equiv), and the video mode goes up to 720p. You do lose some color choices here, though, with only black, red, and silver being offered. Still, if that’s fine by you, you can pick up that better lens and movie mode for a mere $10 over the W 610, or $119.99.

Lastly, we skip a few numbers ahead to the W650. And, as you might assume from such a jump, the features leap forward a bit as well. You get to keep the 5x 28-140mm zoom, but you upgrade to 16.1 megapixels. The movie mode remains stuck at 720p, but optical image stabilization makes an appearance finally. You also get a 3″ LCD. Firmware-wise, all the usual and previously mentioned Sony technologies stick around, so you can detect blinks and sweep panoramas to your heart’s content.  at least, you can if you don’t mind black, silver, or red and a $139.99 price tag, that is.



Other Olympus Announcements: VG-160, SZ-12, and SP-620UZ

Olympus has even more new cameras, aimed at various markets and price points.

The VG-160 is the littler bro to the VG-320, at least in name. in style, it’s much more a traditional card-style compact. It’s got 14 megapixels, a 5x optical zoom (26-130mm). All pretty stalwart specs. It’s got a vaguely worded “dual image stabilization mode”, which might include sensor-shift as part of it. Either way, it gets a price point one penny under a hundred, at $99.99 initial retail. Colors here are orange, red, black, or silver.

Up next is the newest ultra-zoom (it’s like a super zoom, but with more zoom to zoom), the SP-620UZ. Interestingly, despite having the UZ moniker, this camera actually has less zoom than the plain-old SZ camera that was announced, and at this point the UZ is just telling you it uses the chunkier body style that once-upon-a-time imitated DSLRs, but has now got a different flair to it. Anyway, it’s a 21x zoom (25-525 equiv), and 16 megapixels behind that. The vaguely worded dual image stabilization strikes again, and a guded multiple shot 3D mode creeps in. If you guessed it probably has art filters, then you’ve obviously caught the hang of every Olympus camera announced since the E-P1. Street price for this guy is going to be $199.99, and you can have silver or black.

And last up is the very neat-o looking SZ-12 (seriously, Olympus has really upped its industrial design the past couple years. I approve.) This guy’s got 24x zoom (25-600mm), which ought be enough for pretty much anything. There’s a more conservative 14 megapixel sensor here, which is less good for tight crops but should help high-ISO noise a bit. The vaguely worded dual-IS once more strikes, and at this point I’m just assuming it includes sensor-shift, since it’s be unfathomable not to on a lens this size 9which makes the VG-160 up there even more enticing at that low price point). It can also chug along at a nice 7 frames-per-second. Everything else gets a yadda yadda (3″ LCD, art filters, etc), so, it’s really the lens’ show here. Well, that and the “retro-chic ‘smart grip’,” which does look pretty neat, though we’ll have to get our actual hands on it to confirm ergonomics. Price here is also $199.99, and you can have black, silver, or red.



Olympus Announces New Tough TG-320 All-Weather Compact

With the all-weather (waterproof, freezeproof, crushproof) market being one of the fastest growing ones right now, it’d be easy to forget that Olympus is really the oldest player in the game. At least, until you look at yet another entry for them, where their many years of refinement to the style and design become a bit more apparent. Such is the case with the TG-320, a mere “mid-grade” entry into their famous Tough series.

As a cost-conscious model, it features a mere 14 megapixels, a 3.6x optical zoom (28-102mm equiv, f3.5-5), a 2.7″ LCD, waterproofiness (what? that should totally be a word) to 10 ft, shockproof to 5 ft, and freezeproof to 14 degrees F. In other words, about everything you need to survive every day life, be that bars, kids, or kayaking. All for a street price of  $179.99. And, if you’ve been waiting for just such a refresh to the Tough line, you can preorder it on our site now in red or blue. Or read the press release after the jump, if you like.

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Olympus VR-340 Is Compact and Zoomy, Has Cheesy Press Line

“NEW OLYMPUS VR-340 PROVES BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP.” Thus starts Olympus’ press release for the new VR-340, a stylish upgrade to the also stylish VR-320 of yester-year. Key specs are a 16 megapixel sensor (up two megapixels from the 320) and a 10x superwide 24-240mm equiv zoom (down 2.5x from the 320). Otherwise, you’ve got a metal body, a 3″ rear LCD, nine art filters, the usual compliment of auto scene modes and auto-focus trickery, sensor shift image stabilization, and ISOs up to 1600. In your choice of black, white, silver, red, or purple. All for a very pocket-friendly anticipated cost of $149.99. If you’re in the market for just such a camera, you can put in for what ought to be a very short preorder wait here.

You can also read the press release after the jump.

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Canon Expands PowerShot G Line with G1 X Large-Sensor Compact

If money is no object in your quest for good low-light photos, but size is, Canon’s ready to lend a hand with its newest entry in its G line of professional digital compacts, the G1 X. In the modern trend of sticking large sensors into essentially point-and-shoot bodies, the G1 X shoves a 1.5″ CMOS sensor into what’s essentially a nominally larger G12. To save you all some looking for it, that’s a 1.85x crop factor, making this sensor larger than every Four-Thirds/Micro Four-Thirds sensor and the Nikon 1 system, but smaller than Sony’s NEX line and Fuji’s popular X100.

On that 1.85x CMOS sensor you’ll find 14.3 megapixels capable of ISOs 100-12,800 in Program mode, and in front of it you’ll find a 4x optical zoom (28-112mm equiv, f2.8-5.6, minimum f16), and around back there’s a 3″ 922,000 dot tilt-swivel LCD. Otherwise, it’s about what you’d expect from this class of compact. There’s full manual controls, controls wheels, mode dials, and raw support. Oh, and there’s 1080p video, too, just in case you thought for a moment a new camera could dare come out without a video mode (silly you).

The other note here is the price tag. The PowerShot G1 X will debut at $799.99 next month. Yup. $800. For those of you not looking to drop that much on a compact, the G12 is remaining in the line-up at the more conservative $500, but it’ll still have that much, much smaller 1/2.3″ sensor compared to this new G entry. Press release after the jump.

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Fuji Announces Availability and Pricing for Finepix X-S1

Fuji today, in addition to 19 new products, announced the pricing and availability for its X-S1, the third member of their increasingly popular X series (X10 and X100, anyone?).

The X-S1 is a sort of superzoom, except the built-in lens uses a knurled zoom ring for manual zoom, a la DSLRs. This type of camera used to be more common, notably in Olympus’ old Camedia UZ series cameras. The X100 used a fixed lens and APS-C sensor, the X10 switch to a 2/3″ sensor and moved up to 4x zoom. The X-S1 is the superzoom pal to the X10 in that regard, it also uses the 2/3″ sensor, but pushes the zoom factor up to 26x with a 24-624mm f2.8-5.6 lens.

You look at things through a high-rez EVF with 1.4 million dots, or on the 3″ tilting LCD with 460,000 dots. To help justify its high price tag, the shutter lag is reported to be a mere 0.01 seconds, and you’ll get image stabilization, PASM, raw, and SD, SDHC, and SDXC support too.

The X-S1 will be available around this month-ish, and cost right around $800 to add to your own kit.



Fuji Refreshes Entire Line-Up In One Day

Fuji today announced approximately a bizillion (or 19) new additions to its point-and-shoot line-up, making a strong show of its presence in that end of the market. Among the announced cameras, there are 3 rugged waterproof models, 2 refreshes for it’s deck-of-card style super-elegant Z series, two entry level JX cameras with plastic bodies, 2 JZ models with metal ones, 2 entry-level superzooms, two mid-grade superzooms, a super-zoom with a CMOS sensor and RAW capability, a compact travel zoom model, and three entries in its high-end F series compacts. Five of those models feature the company’s advanced EXR sensor technology (the F770EXR, F750EXR, F660EXR, HS30EXR, and Z1000 EXR models.)

That’s a lot of announcements, so, let me just talk about a couple highlights from the crop:

First up, the top of the compact line, the Finepix F770EXR. This is the top model in a line-up of three closely related siblings, and it features a 16 megapixel 1/2″ EXR sensor, 25-500mm 20x optical zoom lens, 3″ 460,000 dot LCD, built-in GPS, and raw. Also on board is sensor-shift image stabilization and 1080 HD video.

It’s got a metal body in black and red, and will run somewhere around $380.

Up next we have the HS30EXR, the top model in Fuji’s new superzoom line-up. This particular series of superzooms stick to the older “bridge” camera aesthetic that more closely resembles a DSLR than the expectations of a point and shoot. As suggested by the category name, the HS30EXR has a massive zoom, a 24-720mm equivalent 30x monster strapped to a 16 megapixel 1/2″ EXR sensor (just like the F770EXR). The HS30EXR has a .26″ electronic viewfinder with 920,000 dots of resolution, a 3″ LCD with 460,000 dots resolution, and it can record raw. It’s got a smaller brother that’s similarly spec’ed but lowers the viewfinder quality and uses AAs. Both bodies record 1080 HD at 30fps and have sensor-shift image stabilization.

The HS30EXR will run right around $500 when it hits the market.

Next up is the Z1000EXR, which is the update to a line I’ve always been a bit fond of, if for no other reason than their style. While the looks are no longer as unique and striking as they were back in the first and second generations, the Z series remains a well-spec’ed line of  deck-of-cards style compacts.

If you hadn’t guessed form the name, that 16 megapixel EXR sensor is found here, too, this time married to a 5x optical zoom. There’s a 3.5″ touchscreen LCD running the show around back, and it’s got some wifi capabilities that can share photos to any Android or iOS phone or tablet running their free transfer software.

No word on price here yet, but there’ll be four colors: pink, green, white, and tan.

Last up on the highlight-o-rama is Finepix FP150, top of the waterproof, rugged trio. The XP150 is dustproof, waterproof to 16.5′, shockproof to 5′, and freeze proof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. all that protects a 14 megapixel CMOS sensor and a 28-140mm 5x optical zoom with dual image-shift stabilization. There’s a redesigned double lock door protecting your card and batteries (and, presumably, all the other guts too). The XP150 ups all that by adding GPS and an electronic compass into the mess, and you’ll be able to pick it up for around $280 in black or “holy crap where did I lose that?” orange.




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